[katchkamalesh]

The whole argument about women darting across the road and human driven vehicle would have also lead to the same conclusion is completely pointless. The whole point of introducing autonomous vehicles is that vehicle is designed to be better than a human at driving the vehicle.
Before I saw the video, I assumed that the woman must have stood in the pavement and all of a sudden crossed the road from right to left. If this was the case, the vehicle’s sensors would have identified the pedestrian well ahead of time and assumed that the pedestrian will cross the road after the vehicle passes.

But after looking at the video, I am quite baffled as to why the sensors were not able to detect this person. We are not talking about just a sensor but a plethora of sensors like LiDARs. Long and short range Radars, cameras and IR camera. Even if one of these failed, others should have acted as redundancy and spotted the pedestrian. The reason why I am saying that the vehicle failed to spot the person is because I did not see deceleration.
If the vehicle had spotted the pedestrian and knew that crash was imminent, the vehicle’s autonomous emergency brakes would have been engaged and vehicle would have carried out evasive manoeuvre to prevent the vehicle colliding.

On the other hand I am assuming that the pedestrian would have been walking and after seeing the vehicle she would have decided to run and this would have led to the accident.

[amitoj]

Why does the world even need autonomous, self driving cars? Is this really what the topmost priority should be for transporting humans from one place to another? Shouldn't there be more focus on developing mass transit options that have wider and frequent coverage?

US is probably the most guilty country in this aspect. There is hardly any public transport outside of major cities and even in cities where it is present, it is in dire need of upgrades (I am looking at you, New York Subway)

[Aditya]

Mod Note : Uber's self-driving car kills a pedestrian - posts moved to a new thread.

[blackwasp]

The accident video released in the aftermath clearly shows that the driver was not looking up ahead. While, required or not, when testing such a technology on the roads, the driver should have been alert. It may or may not have resulted in a different outcome, but it would have atleast showcased a bit more of proper conduct.

While a huge hue and cry is raised over how the radar should have picked up the pedestrian etc, unless more data is released, it is just too early to speculate on the topic.

[katchkamalesh]

Originally Posted by blackwasp

The accident video released in the aftermath clearly shows that the driver was not looking up ahead. While, required or not, when testing such a technology on the roads, the driver should have been alert.

People will be complacent and there is no two way about it. We can see a lot of videos on YouTube where people stick soda cans just to beat the system into believing that hands are on the steering wheel.

This is the biggest setback for autonomous vehicles and for this very reason some of the OEMs have decided to skip various levels of automation and launch fully autonomous vehicles (level 5).

Unfortunately nothing can be done about this.

[blackwasp]

Uber's autonomous car was involved in a pedestrian fatality in Tempe, Arizona on March 18, 2018. Recently, the authorities released a video of the same as well.

Upon the public release of the video, Governor of Arizona has sent a letter addressed to Uber's CEO Mr. Khosrowshahi, regarding the incident. The Governor has directed the State Department of transportation to revoke Uber's permission for testing as well as operating autonomous cars in Arizona. Uber has commented on the same via Twitter, saying that they are continuing the co-operation with the investigators and will be addressing any concerns the Governor's office could have.

The 20-second video released by the Tempe Police department reveals the inside as well as the outside view of the car. It shows that the car’s backup driver was looking down just before the crash. The car was in autonomous mode and the authorities have already ruled out driver impairment.

Meanwhile, Aptive, the supplier of radar and camera systems for Volvo, has reportedly revealed that their collision avoidance systems were disabled by Uber prior to being used as autonomous vehicle. A spokesperson for the supplier said that this could be due to the standard practice of disabling systems in the car when a company is testing its own autonomous driving system.

While the investigation of the event is still underway, Uber has kept its autonomous vehicle testing in Pittsburgh, San Francisco and Toronto suspended.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=igGmbyveZ48

Source - Los Angeles Times

Link to the Team-BHP News

[amitoj]

Originally Posted by blackwasp

Meanwhile, Aptive, the supplier of radar and camera systems for Volvo, has reportedly revealed that their collision avoidance systems were disabled by Uber prior to being used as autonomous vehicle. A spokesperson for the supplier said that this could be due to the standard practice of disabling systems in the car when a company is testing its own autonomous driving system.

This is a disturbing piece of news. Aptive's systems should have been working as a backup and logs could have been studied to test the efficacy of Uber's own systems.

I also read somewhere that most companies use two drivers when testing autonomous cars. One to monitor the car's systems and other to keep an eye on the traffic. Uber had only one.

EDIT: Found the source: Almost Everyone Uses Two Safety Drivers

[alpha1]

Originally Posted by blackwasp

...

Quite surprised to see that all the high tech gadgetry (like radar/laser and what not) of driverless car couldn't detect a person walking in the dark areas between the street lights.

Forum members, please do not get mislead by the darkness in the video. I am pretty sure that it was not as dark as it appears.

Most car cameras do not come with auto ISO adjustment or aperture controls for optimal image exposure. They are fixed sensors with fixed sensitivities.

Our eyes are not. I am quite confident (sitting across the globe but backed by anecdotal references of poor street lighting in India) that a human being with eyes on road would have detected a dark figure in such dim lit conditions.

[GutsyGibbon]

Originally Posted by amitoj

Why does the world even need autonomous, self driving cars? Is this really what the topmost priority should be for transporting humans from one place to another? Shouldn't there be more focus on developing mass transit options that have wider and frequent coverage?

US is probably the most guilty country in this aspect. There is hardly any public transport outside of major cities and even in cities where it is present, it is in dire need of upgrades (I am looking at you, New York Subway)

The vehicle to vehicle protocols and the vehicle to infrastructure protocol, has mass transit in mind. Your car locks into a road train of sorts. A human could never drive with a feet of clearance with the car in front of it. Most of the energy is spent pushing air. This is the problem hyperloop is trying to solve. In this case , as the car in front does most of the work, it could get credit from the followers. This can reduce car density, and ease bottlenecks. Pretty much everything is controlled by the CPU, what is now needed is ability to cooperate with cpus of other cars.

[amitoj]

Originally Posted by GutsyGibbon

A human could never drive with a feet of clearance with the car in front of it.

Bangalore cabbies would like to disagree with you there

Yes, maybe in the distant utopian future, we will have nothing but autonomous cars on the roads.Or maybe this is just another pipe dream like mass produced flying cards and shoes that can fit any size feet.

[tsk1979]

Originally Posted by amitoj

This is a disturbing piece of news. Aptive's systems should have been working as a backup and logs could have been studied to test the efficacy of Uber's own systems.

I also read somewhere that most companies use two drivers when testing autonomous cars. One to monitor the car's systems and other to keep an eye on the traffic. Uber had only one.

EDIT: Found the source: Almost Everyone Uses Two Safety Drivers

I find this news reports odd. I see countless self driven cars here, however rarely have I seen one with two drivers. Be it the egg or the lexus, there always has been a single driver. Maybe this practice is changing now.

That said, this seems like a software failure. Uber was "testing" its own new collision avoidance system. Anybody can build a sensor, and sensors are cheap. However the firmware is expensive. By having your own firmware instead of the one supplied by sensor company, you could halve your costs. With the new solid state scanners being pushed into use, sensor cost is going down even more. Fast spinning mechanical sensors are disappearing now.

[GutsyGibbon]

Originally Posted by amitoj

Bangalore cabbies would like to disagree with you there

Yes, maybe in the distant utopian future, we will have nothing but autonomous cars on the roads.Or maybe this is just another pipe dream like mass produced flying cards and shoes that can fit any size feet.

In my estimates, it is not that far off. Waymo is atleast 6 years ahead of Uber. They have data from millions of miles of autonomous driving. Uber is really bringing a bad name to autonomous tech. They stole stuff, they played with the laws of the land everywhere, all to create hype and increase market cap. It is now biting them in their rear.

Even the orange cones have an IP stack/IOT enabled. Cars can know a mile ahead that there is a lane closed, and can avoid bottlenecks. Some freeways already have optic fiber laid next to them almost a decade ago. They did it without knowing what and how they will use this bandwidth. Such infrastructure can dictate a lot of what these cars need to do. It is not entirely autonomous in that sense. The smart infrastructure can manage these autonomous cars in real time. We would probably create a lot more jobs for people sitting and watching monitors like automated railway control, or air traffic control.

Originally Posted by tsk1979

Anybody can build a sensor, and sensors are cheap. However the firmware is expensive. By having your own firmware instead of the one supplied by sensor company, you could halve your costs.

If it is stolen firmware that they had to give away, then there is just "No Op" code, flipping LEDs putting on a show for the investors/ stock market.
https://www.androidheadlines.com/201...ymo-files.html

[speedmiester]

More bad news for Uber.

In the past two years Uber has reduced the number of sensors used for detecting obstacles.

Uber self-driving tech has blind spots from fewer sensors

Also Volvo's own collision avoidance systems were disabled by Uber. The XC90 cars by Volvo has a quite a bit of kit in itself with auto braking and other tech to avoid collision. Looks like Uber has a lot more to explain for than just the failure of their own tech.

Uber's Autonomous Test Cars Had Volvo's Safety Systems Disabled

Uber tech was so bad compared to competition that human intervention was required every few miles compared to an average of 5600 miles of Waymo

Uber’s Self-Driving Cars Were Struggling Before Arizona Crash

All this will spell doom for Uber's ambitious project, they were counting on it big time as a path to profitability. But with their quest to catch with Google and others, Uber chose the shortest path to the destination just like their app.
It will be a long battle for Uber from now on.

[mvadg]

After taking a look at the video countless times and reading several different news articles about the accident, I used Google StreetView to try and convince myself that this could have happened to anyone, but to no avail.

I am pretty sure that this is Uber's fault. There is no way detection could have failed, unless there was no attempt in the workings of the system to spot such occurrences or avoid such situations. This was something that was overlooked or buggy software is to blame.

I don't trust Uber at all. Here are some articles about Uber:
How Uber Breaks the Rules

What is the Greyball software Uber used to avoid the law?

How Uber Deceives the Authorities Worldwide

A simple Google search will reveal many, many similar articles from every part of the world.

Given their record, and my personal experience with their customer service, I'm willing to bet that when all the findings are reviewed by unbiased, competent experts, Uber will be found to be at fault.

[clevermax]

Going by the video, looks to me like the technology is to be blamed. All those array of sensors, radars could not detect a potential obstruction coming straight onto the vehicle's path?



If it was daytime and an alert human was driving the car, they would have surely sensed a threat the moment this lady started crossing the road.